Scott Lively, previously known for his work helping criminalize homosexuality in Uganda, caused quite a stir at the Massachusetts Republican convention last weekend. Despite the fact that the assembled party chose to endorse incumbent Republcian governor Charlie Baker, Lively gained enough floor votes to force the party to hold a primary for their party’s nomination.

As anti-LGBTQ crusaders go, Lively is quite the character. Gaining fame with his anti-abortion and anti-gay activism as part of the far-right group Oregon Citizens Alliance, Lively attacked LGBTQ activist Catherine Stauffer at an Oregon Citizens Alliance event in 1992, eventually having to pay over $30,000 in damages.

In 1995, he coauthored The Pink Swastika (with Kevin Abrams), a flabbergasting book that seeks to make the case that homosexuality in the Nazi Party was at the root of their militaristic impulses. To make such a claim about a group that arrested over 100,000 homosexuals during their reign, interring at least 5,000 of those homosexuals in concentration camps, is ridiculous enough that it should hardly need rebuttal (though informed rebuttals are certainly out there if you need one).

Lively went international in the new millennium, partnering with Latvian pastor Alexey Ledyaev to form Watchmen On The Walls, a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate group that supports conversion therapy and holds anti-LGBTQ rallies in Latvia. In 2009, Lively began visiting Uganda regularly to speak about the “disease” of homosexuality, blaming it on Western interference in the African country.

Lively told Ugandans that LGBTQ people would prey on children, saying according to Mother Jones that gay people are “looking for other people to be able to prey upon. When they see a child that’s from a broken home it’s like they have a flashing neon sign over their head.” The eventual result of Lively’s work in Uganda was the controversial Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, which initially mandated the death penalty for gay people — later reduced to life in prison.

Lively didn’t go so far as to endorse killing LGBTQ people; instead, he preferred that the Ugandans focus on “rehabilitation,” by which he meant, you guessed it, conversion therapy. Lively was later sued for “crimes against humanity” for his role in the Ugandan act, but the case was ultimately dismissed on a technicality — due to the fact that Lively’s actions hadn’t taken place on American soil, and were therefore out of the US Federal Courts’ jurisdiction.

This is the man that received 28 percent of floor votes at the Massachusetts Republican convention last weekend.

The party as a whole chose to endorse Charlie Baker, the incumbent governor of Massachusetts, who received 70 percent of the vote. However, the fact that nearly one-third of the assembled delegation voted for Lively over him caused Baker to receive some pointed questions about the state of his party. “I can’t get in the minds of people who made decisions to support us or support anybody else,” Baker told one journalist, according to WAMC. “But I can tell you that Scott Lively — a lot of what he says, a lot of what he believes — doesn’t belong in public discourse.”

As governor, Baker’s centrist positions have distanced him from President Trump and received support within Massachusetts, a traditionally liberal state. Lively’s ascendance has come with the assistance of disaffected far-right members of the party, and the traction he’s gained with those voters has come mainly from his support of Trump, and his attacks against Baker for not supporting the president enough for his tastes.

Lively’s maintained his strong stance against reproductive rights as part of his candidacy, but even he seems to realize how extreme and unappetizing his past anti-LGBTQ positions have been. “I have some fence mending that I need to do with people in the LGBTQ community,” he told WAMC. “I have overstated some things — not so much in my writings, I can defend just about anything I’ve written — but sometimes, giving a speech, especially when you’re under siege like I have been, and the media is only looking at you and not fact checking the other side too, sometimes you sort of fall into hyperbole.”

Lively has attempted some “fence mending” with Massachusetts gay conservative groups. However, considering that he’s still standing behind his writings, which include the entirety of The Pink Swastika, you’ll have to forgive us if we remain unconvinced.

Massachusetts’ Republican gubernatorial primary is scheduled for September 4. We’ll keep you posted on how things proceed.

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